Vatican City, Oct 30, 2019 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Angelo Becciu has denied any impropriety in a real estate investment made with Vatican funds and insisted that he only acted in the best interests of the Holy See.
In an interview with Italian media published Tuesday, the former deputy at the Holy See’s Secretariat of State rejected any wrongdoing in the authorization of a $200 million property deal to develop a building in London.
Responding to what he called “slanderous charges” that he had “played with and tampered with the money of the poor” in the 2014 transaction, the cardinal defended the investment, saying it was “accepted practice.”
Speaking to ANSA, the cardinal said “My conscience is clear and I know I have always acted in the interest of the Holy See and never in my personal one. Those who know me well can attest to that.”
Becciu served as “sostituto,” or second-ranking official at the Secretariat of State from 2011-2018, when Pope Francis named him a cardinal and moved him to the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints.
The interview came in response to media coverage of an ongoing investigation by Vatican criminal and financial authorities into a 2014 $200 million investment made through Athena Capital, a Luxembourg investment fund, which financed a stake in the development of a luxury apartment project in London.
Details of the investment were first reported by the Financial Times earlier this month. The money was taken from Swiss bank accounts under the control of the Secretariat of State and kept separately from other curial accounts held at the Vatican.
The London investment, along with a nearly $50 million 2018 investment in the same property, has raised questions about the internal control of Vatican money held in international banks and investment vehicles, especially after repeated efforts to bring financial practices into line with international practices and standards.
On Tuesday, Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Pietro Parolin said the investment was a one-off, and the fund in question appeared to be “well managed.” He said that he was working to clear up questions about the project.
“We are working to clear up everything. This deal was rather opaque and now we are trying to clear it up,” Reuters quoted Parolin as saying.
Becciu told ANSA that there is a difference between Vatican funds intended for the benefit of the poor and the proceeds of the annual Peter’s Pence collection taken up in every parish in the world and sent to Rome.
“It is accepted practice for the Holy See to invest in property, it has always done so: in Rome, in Paris, in Switzerland and also in London,” Becciu said, insisting that the deal was “regular and registered according to law.”
“In the Secretariat of the State we had a fund entitled ‘money of the poor’. And it was destined for the poor. If, on the other hand, for money of the poor they want to refer to Peter’s Pence, we have to clarify,” Becciu said.
“The Pence is not only for the pope’s almsgiving but also the funding for his Pastoral ministry,” Becciu said, suggesting that the Secretariat’s two investments in the luxury apartment development were an appropriate use of donated funds.
Becciu did not address his reported involvement in other complicated Vatican transactions during the interview.
On Oct. 29, CNA reported that Becciu was involved in a complicated series of events and financial transactions around the purchase of the Istituto Dermopatico dell’Immacolata (IDI), an Italian hospital that collapsed in 2013 under 800 million euros of debt through theft and fraud.
As sostituto, sources told CNA, Becciu was the “driving force” behind requests for a $25 million grant from the U.S. based Papal Foundation, ostensibly to supply short-term liquidity to the hospital, but actually intended to help remove a 50 million euro bad loan from the books at the Vatican’s central bank, APSA.
While the balance of the grant was cancelled after pushback from Papal Foundation board members, $13 million dollars was initially sent to the Secretariat of State, though how the money was used has not been reported.
Becciu told CNA that although he had been involved in the purchase of the IDI by a partnership created by the Secretariat of State, “Cardinal Parolin assumed the office of Secretary of State [in 2013] and I no longer concerned myself with IDI.”
In early 2019, Cardinal Parolin, wrote to the Papal Foundation saying the $13 million would be reclassified as a loan, rather than a grant, and would be repaid.
Two sources within the Papal Foundation told CNA that the Vatican has proposed the loan be repaid through “discounts” applied each year to the list of grants requested of the Papal Foundation by Vatican offices and Catholic apostolates.
“The poor will end up paying the debt,” a source close to the Papal Foundation told CNA.
Becciu’s role in authorizing the $200 million investment, and the potential focus on his time at the Secretariat of State by Vatican investigators have placed his tenure there under renewed scrutiny. While there, he was responsible for the cancellation of an external audit of all curial finances, intended to centralize information and details of Vatican assets and funds held away from the Vatican and unavailable for scrutiny.
On October 1, Vatican prosecutors raided the Secretariat of State’s offices. Documents and devices were seized. Although the Vatican did not indicate what exactly had prompted the investigation, subsequent reporting has indicated the London property investment and Cardinal Becciu were being looked into.
The next day, a confidential memo was leaked announcing the suspension of five Vatican employees, including two officials: Msgr. Mauro Carlino, who oversees documentation at the Secretariat of State, along with layman Tomasso Di Ruzza, director of the Vatican’s Financial Intelligence Authority (AIF). Di Ruzza was subsequently cleared to return to work following and internal AIF investigation.
Becciu’s interview came two days after the same paper reported that Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte had been hired to consult on the deal in May, 2018, just weeks before taking office.
Conte has since distanced himself from the Vatican-backed deal and ensuing investigation.
On Monday, his office released a statement in response to the FT’s story saying “it should be noted that Mr. Conte only gave a legal opinion and was not aware of, and was not required to know, the fact that some investors were connected to an investment fund supported by the Vatican and now at the center of an investigation.”
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A Pope, resistant to doctrine and the Ordinary Magisterium relative to centuries of Church Tradition, continues to turn the minor experience of a ‘synod’ into the universal importance of a Council under the guise of ‘listening to the people’ and continuing to be indifferent to Revelation and forgetting what it means to bring Souls back to Christ.
Two years instead of one, a great idea! As things now stand, synodality is all over the map in every sense of the word. Time now for a reality check by the one, hole, catholic and apostolic Church…
Yes, extended to two sessions there’s even the opportunity for Batzing to be replaced, and for a smooth replacement of the echo-chamber voices, Grech and Hollerich. And, even for a successor pope (?) to restore all of the Successors of the Apostles as something more than flip-chart “facilitators” for a congeries of interests of one color or another, or of all colors in the rainbow.
Butt, one problem is that the gangrenous German “synodal way” is also likely on a 2024 timeline. With its agenda to mainstream the homosexual lifestyle, masturbation (be inclusive!), bigamy, and priestesses. So, the fly in the ointment (double entendre intended) is the danger of some kind of plebiscite mega-surprise attached in the second year 2024—just as undefined “synodality” itself was annexed in 2018 to the very unrelated “Synod on Young People, Faith and Vocational Discernment.” Pin the tail on the donkey!
Still, 2024 is a good opportunity in the United States to leaven synodal listening with the 2024 National Eucharistic Conference in Indianapolis. And, of course the year 2023 must be avoided, since that will be the 30th Anniversary of Veritatis Splendor—a modernday “prisoner of the Vatican.”
Great. Another year of confusion, navel-gazing and catering to the zeitgeist.
Or maybe more time to expose the rot so we can excise it.
One can only hope. And pray.
First the synod general secretariat said that the whole-church Synod is the fruit of VATICAN II and now the Holy Father takes it further and says that it is “constitutive dimension of the Church” whereby it will help Christians “proclaim the joy of the Gospel”.
I suspect and I suggest that there is some other cause -misgiving- for the extension but a need to make it known in haste determined a badly crafted explanation.
The thing that constitutes the Church is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
“Synod” being “mentioned throughout the Council documents” refers to subsidiary activity in particular Churches.
https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2022/10/10/vaticans-synod-on-synodality-organizers-say-synod-is-fruit-of-second-vatican-council/
‘ “To know the reality of Asia, which is a vast continent starting from Kazakhstan in the far west end to Japan in the far east end, we have to immerse ourselves into the completely diverse stories of each of the 22 countries present,” Kikuchi said.
“We immediately realized that as Asia is a continent of complex realities with different cultures, it is not easy task to make one unified policy for pastoral response. Because of this realization, we understood the meaning of the last phrase of the Theme of the General Conference which is: And they went a different way,” the archbishop said. ‘
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-asia/2022/10/asian-bishops-considers-future-paths-for-church-on-continent-of-complex-realities
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-asia/2022/10/pope-urges-asian-bishops-to-count-on-laypeople-celebrate-diversity
https://cruxnow.com/church-in-oceania/2022/10/fiji-archbishop-warns-against-new-colonial-forces-in-pacific-nation
Many of the buffoons who write for that journal (which often appears as much of a journal of Catholic anti-Catholic bigotry as the bad NCR) never tire of contriving the immutable truth it is the Church’s mission to witness as an act of imperialism which requires heavy doses of moral relativism to counteract, oblivious to how this affects the destruction of life and souls. “Complex” has become the new bludgeon word for denying the reality of God’s gift of truth.
May the Father of Lights prolong and extend their discernment…indefinitely.
My sentiments exactly. Make the Synod a permanent fixture in the Church rather than torturing us with death by a thousand paper cuts.
“The Synod on Destroying Catholicism” is taking longer than originally thought.
If the China Provisional Agreement is renewed later this month on its “anniversary” October 22 and gets another 2-year period, it then coincides with the extended timeline of the “Synod”.
The FIDES article is worth reading in full I think.
‘ In the dominant representations of the relations between China and the Vatican, the factors that pushed the Holy See to follow the path it has taken, and the criteria that have guided it in its choices on questions so vital to the sensus Ecclesiae of Chinese Catholics, are generally suppressed and hidden. ‘
http://www.fides.org/en/news/72835-VATICAN_The_China_Holy_See_Agreement_and_the_treasure_of_faith
https://press.vatican.va/content/salastampa/en/bollettino/pubblico/2020/10/22/201022a.html
Yes, let’s twiddle our thumbs while Rome burns.
I am so done with this S on S.
I’m with Robert Royal, The Catholic Thing, “VIII by a thousand cuts” (words to that effect), Oct. 17.
In the photo are 6 people that I wouldn’t entrust to be alone talking to my children, or anyone I cared about.
They oppose the apostolic faith, for instance, they oppose the Church’s moral teaching against sodomy, as stated by Eminence Hollerich, SJ.
They should be shunned, as St. Paul says about disbelievers “inside the Church.”
It’s worth noting that a full half of the Synodality leadership as shown in the photo (3 out of 6) are Jesuits. They’re not doing a very good job of hiding their takeover of the Church, are they?
Wang Libin supplies good information and, I think, analysis, in his article here at THE DIPLOMAT May 7 2022, “China-Vatican Relations in the Xi Era”; however he hasn’t disentangled the problems:
‘ The practical need to gain control, if only nominally, of China’s 12 million Catholics has conflicted with the conscientious need to condemn the CCP, making Pope Francis ambivalent about whether the two sides should sign a formal agreement on the bishop arrangement this October, when the renewed deal will expire. ‘
The problem is serial, i.e., inter-connected with one consequent on the other, etc. The Holy Father identifies “formal” relations as inferior but the Provisional Agreement has fixed faithful Catholics under the legalistic handle of the CPC inside a confusion of ideas; and placed the Holy See in a conflict between not dividing the hierarchy but dividing it. It’s one thing to identify formalism as having a danger of being empty. But are you even able to handle substantial relationships that do not have formalist expression? Do you even care to do so? Mustn’t you at least try? And mustn’t you avoid over-laying your effort with other actions that tend to neutralize it or cancel it?
Why subjugate Chinese Catholics and all Chinese with them, to the ideas of the CPC? How can you do that and in the same moment proclaim that reality is greater than ideas? Which reality is being sustained?
Following Libin’s train of thought, 4 years have passed and nothing has changed.
Then can’t it also be seen that 4 years have passed and nothing has been learned?
https://thediplomat.com/2022/05/china-vatican-relations-in-the-xi-era/
Maybe enough discernment has occurred to discern that the Holy Spirit is busy discerning and is still very confused since Francis has discerned in his many discernments that God is a God in process, a God who discerns through history, uncertain from one age to another of what is really true or not, what is really real or not, what needs to be discerned about right and wrong. After all, the Holy Spirit should not be tempted to be involved in commiting the “sin of backwardness”. Francis must be discerning that discerning is difficult for all beings, greater and lesser.
A famous saying is “ if it ain’t broke, dont fix it”. An extra year of this confused synod is nothing more than an extended opportunity to misdirect and destroy the church. The church has been mostly skidding downhill since V2 wrought so much destruction on tradition, discipline and decimated vocations. This so-called synod is on target to make it worse. Disgusted by the vapidness of the German Bishops.
https://wherepeteris.com/the-synod-on-synodality-mission-accomplished/ – a difft take on the need for the process of listening , in the trusting hope in The Spirit that it would open hearts to hear Him , to bring needed repentance too in all areas where in the enemy voice reverberates .. the decision to extend the synod for another year – ? also as reparation for a Church that has closed its ears and heart , while giving lip service if at that to the role of the Holy Father and The Catholic Church,
? effects of same manifesting in own people as hatred for life and related addictions , lust for power and money among those in authority .. Same then spilling over as wars and vindictiveness, instead of the good will to listen to own people to hear of the help needed , in how to be ‘orthodox ‘in protecting the sacredness of life and marriage ..
Good to see EWTN doing the Rosary devotion for peace in Ukraine by participating in same from Lourdes …Immaculate Conception – a blessed truth given to The Church , to prepare the children for these times of carnal flood waters .. for a deeper awareness that each life has its origin in the Giver of Life , that the noncarnal purity of same is for us through The Mother … ? the fear of that truth as the tool used by the enemy to keep even Churches that claim oneness in Truth , yet reluctant to accept same whole heartedly ..and instead find reasons to magnify perceived errors in the patient , compassionate stand of the Holy Father in his difficult role to deal with the entrenched wounds and sensitivities …the joy and enthusiasm with which the synodal process is accepted in some places to be ? the antidote for the fears and the sclerotic stubborness in other places ..instead to be young at heart, through the young too , who ‘make a mess ‘ – such as the Bl.Carlo Acutis who loved St.Francis and The Eucharist ..The endearing dialogue that St.Luke would have had with The Mother – that they likley continue in heaven , rejoicing in already beholding in the Eternal Now in the Divine Will , how the mighty have been cast down – as given in a recent talking / teaching ‘doctoring ‘ moment by the Holy Father …may The Spirit drown out and remove all dragon flood waters to help us all to heed His whisper – as His Love for the littlest to the least ..
FIAT !
What exactly is “compassionate” from the actions of a “Holy Father” who seeks to trivialize the damage done to the victims of sin through institutionalizing the process of a permanent deconstruction of the objective moral order given to us by God to where it becomes meaningless?
Personally, I’d like to see synodality extended into 2025 as well. But why stop there? Since it’s such a brilliant, stupendous idea, let’s make it perpetual. It will, thus, renew the Church every year like clockwork, long after Pope F. has sailed off into the sunset. What a legacy it will be. Eternal sodality–at least until the Kingdom comes.
Synods will continue until consensus is reached!